EFU Film: Melting Point – on the frontline of environmental activism

The Ecologist Film Unit's second release documents how espionage, news manipulation, legal threats and even violence have become the knee-jerk response of Government and big business to the increasingly vocal concerns of environmental protesters in the UK

Government and big business are countering resurgent eco activism with spies, strongarm tactics and news manipulation. Who are they calling terrorists? asks Andrew Wasley

The building, in a ubiquitous leafy street in south-west London, is unremarkable, but this Fulham house is at the centre of a controversial plot that reads like something out of an Ian Fleming spy novel.

It is the home of Toby Kendall, an employee of the ‘special risk management’ and security consultancy C2i International, who went undercover to spy on members of Plane Stupid, a group tackling the aviation industry head on. Operating under the pseudonym Ken Tobias, Kendall, 24, spent a year covertly gathering information on Plane Stupid, attending meetings and participating in protests. Kendall’s infiltration was exposed when Plane Stupid fed the Oxford-educated ‘activist’ false information that found its way back to the aviation industry and journalists.